Dissident Peace: Autonomous Struggles and the State in Colombia

In 2016, the peace accords between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government promised to bring an end to over fifty years of armed conflict. Yet, despite widespread international acclaim and heavy investments in the peace process, war continued. Dissident Peace provides a rigorous reassessment of the terms of peacebuilding through an ethnography of ongoing struggles for autonomy, based on over fifteen years of research and activism in Colombia.

From the coca fields of southwestern Colombia to the negotiating table in Cuba, Anthony Dest brings the contradictions of peacebuilding and organizing to life, and opens up critical space from which to imagine more liberatory forms of peace. Dest locates contemporary violence within longer histories of colonial capitalism and centers the lives and insights of black and indigenous communities in Colombia. He identifies ＂dissident peace＂ as a potent alternative to dominant, state-centric peace frameworks--one based on evolving principles of autonomy and self-determination. With vital implications for social movements globally, this book provides a gripping account of what it means to struggle today.

Anthony Dest is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University of New York.